Lots of knowledgable posters on here. But when one says the right thing, there's no need to pile on more answers and replies.
Just use more legs. You don't use your legs. Your waist up swing is as good as anyone's, and anyone's level.

Lots of knowledgable posters on here. But when one says the right thing, there's no need to pile on more answers and replies.
Just use more legs. You don't use your legs. Your waist up swing is as good as anyone's, and anyone's level.

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Why so crotchety Lee?

You gave good advice, but my advice was more drill specific, so it isn't just piling on without anything to offer.

Your advice is often too free-form: Use your legs more, act like you're trying, etc. Knowing that you need to change something and doing it can be different things. For example, I make my students hop over something to learn the proper leg thrust. I find that works better than just telling them "use your legs more."

Yeah, my post sounds really crotchity, doesn't it?
OP is wondering why only I have been giving consistent responses. I say it's because there is no need to pile on any more info, OP just needs to use his legs more.
Tough advice to figure, that. Use legs more means what? Should he collapse like DerekJeter? Should he bend and then spring into a 12" high jump UP into the ball?
You decide, and post to him what you think.
Most of us know what this serve needs.

This is the only feedback I disagree with so far. I do not see how you can say that I have a bad toss

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You say the problem isn't in your toss? There are several probable locations for your inability to get your weight properly into the ball.

1) Your upper body motion isn't good. That's hardly likely because any healthy person can swing a racket upwards without falling off to the side.

2) The lower body motion isn't good. There's hardly any to begin with. How could it possibly be your legs when you aren't even using them?

3) Your toss isn't where it should be, and your body is compensating by chasing it, resulting in your body weight going backwards prior to contact as opposed to forwards.

Look at your first video alone. I don't care if they're warmup serves. Anyone hitting warm up serves should easily be able to maintain their balance. You fall over on the first 3 serves, hit 1 or 2 reasonable ones, then hit one where you stumble COMPLETELY out of the frame. Whether you try to argue that it was just a warmup or an actual serve, YOU'RE WAY OFF BALANCE HITTING THE BALL. Were you serving in 30 mph winds? If not, then WHY are you falling off to the side? This needs to be addressed before you think about landing further into the court.

Look at the first video alone and look at the difference in the depth of your toss. The ones where you get the ball 1-2 feet into the court results in a relatively balanced finish.

Then there are the ones that hover above the baseline, or even BEHIND the baseline, and you fall backwards (whether it be away from the baseline or deeper into the ad side).

Now, from the rear view, there are balls that fly well off to the left on you, and you still hit them. This should never happen if you, in-fact, have a good toss. When a toss flies that far off, catch it, and put it back up where it should be. Want proof of astray tosses? Second batch, third video, 1:00. First batch, first video, 0:55. First batch, second video, 1:00. First batch, second video, 1:10. First batch, third video, 1:45.

Now for the inconsistency of your depth? Let's look at the first and second videos of your second batch.

7 serves were hit in the first video.
1st was bad. 2nd was good. 3rd was good. 4th was bad. 5th was horrible. 6th was bad. 7th was bad.

9 serves were hit in the second video.
You failed to get a single toss inside the baseline, had a few floating BEHIND the baseline. The only one you came out almost completely on balanced was the one hit at 0:55. The one right after at 1:00 came close, but you were still finishing to your left. Neither had a toss behind the baseline (were above the baseline).

If you meticulously took down the data from these 6 videos, I guarantee you that there will be an approximate function that shows (with some outlying pieces of data, as with any real world set of data) that says the farther off your toss is, the farther to the left you fall.

There's 2 criteria for having a good toss:
1) It's consistent
2) It ALWAYS gets to EXACTLY where it needs to be

Your toss has neither of these characteristics.

How do you not see how I can say you have a bad toss? Because it leaves your hand? Because it stays within the reach of your racket? Because you consistently get strings on the ball? I'm confused how you could even have the illusion of having a good toss BEFORE even filming yourself. I'm even more confused how you can stubbornly believe that lie even AFTER seeing yourself on film. You HAVE seen your serve videos right? You HAVE attempted to analyze them yourself before you submitted them to us right? Or are you trying to have us do all the work in analyzing it then selecting the bits you like and throwing out the truths you deem ugly? Or are you going to just deny it under the pretense that they were just "warm ups"?

You want to get more pop into your serve and land farther into the court?

Lean into the court a bit with your hips. Instead, you have them sitting in the middle of your legs. Why do you not lead with your hips? 1) You've probably never been told to do so, and 2) it seems VERY stupid to lean your hips forward to hit a ball that is right above you, and it IS stupid. So your body sits back so you don't get that awkward situation where your body is a foot or two in front of the ball during contact.

Look how far into these two lean into the court with their hips. Look at where their toss is. Look at their contact. Compare that to yours. They launch their upper bodies into the court. You launch yours backwards. The most significant differences between your serves? The toss and the hip action. Their tosses are in the court, yours is either above the baseline or behind the court (not even in a consistent location either). Their hips lean WAY into the court and in front of their bodies. Your hips sit in the middle of your feet. There's a cause and effect for everything. The cause of your problems is your toss. You want the quickest way to improve your serve? Improve your toss. That alone will improve your serve since you can more efficiently channel the energy of your motion directly into the ball. After that, lean into the court with your hips, creating a larger load of energy to be directed into the ball.

How can you look at your service motion and say that there is anything wrong with it other than your toss? Your serve has nothing else that needs to be changed. Your motion is a solid base with which to add little improvements to (knee action, leading with the hip, shoulder rotation). But you can't do that efficiently without first improving your toss. You can have a great serve if you have a great toss and a bad motion. Even if you have a great motion, if you have a bad toss, it's all wasted and becomes a bad serve.

Ok so I think I might know the problem. I have switched the way I align my feet. By doing so I rotate my upper body to toss the ball to the side/above as opposed to further in the court. I understood that by twisting my upper body to toss the ball I would create my upper body rotation. Is this incorrect?

I really think if you could just feel the power of launching yourself straight up, and landing this way by shadowing swings without a ball will form some "muscle memory", making it easier to incorporate into your serve.
(And you will fell great just having that sensation of really launching yourself up.)

Another topic:

Perhaps you don't understand how to toss more into the court.

Check out this overhead view of the Sampras serve toss:

For a first serve toss you have to start with your hand/ball close to your back foot (pic one) and end up with your hand/ball near your front foot at ball release (pic 4) arm.

I warn you, however, that this forward sweep of the tossing arm is counter to the backward lean with your upper body as you need to form the bow shape.

It takes real concentration on bringing the arm forward not to let your upper body lean forward into the court, or else you will end up with a "reverse" bow shape.

So notice that Pete doesn't allow himself to lean forward at all, even as he brings his arm forward.

Final note:

And note also that it is AFTER ball release in pics 7-10 that he is getting that really big movement of the left hip into the court as I earlier advocated, and xFullCourtTenniSx did in his recent post.

That big lean back with upper body/forward hip out really helps launch yourself "up the mountain" when you reverse the bow shape even more violently.

Ok so I think I might know the problem. I have switched the way I align my feet. By doing so I rotate my upper body to toss the ball to the side/above as opposed to further in the court. I understood that by twisting my upper body to toss the ball I would create my upper body rotation. Is this incorrect?

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With proper toss technique, the toss should be almost independent of the positioning of the feet, hips, and shoulders. Notice how balanced Sampras is when he releases the toss even though he is turned far away from the court. His "archers" bow comes later. Even with servers who have a low toss (e.g., Goran Ivanisevic) the body is balanced when the ball is released.

In my opinion, you should work on your toss by itself with whatever foot position you prefer. Just make certain that your body is balanced over your feet at the release, you cup the ball in your fingers (don't let it drop to the palm) and you control where it is directed. Don't hit it and let it bounce in the court to see if you're hitting your target.

The good thing about working on the toss in isolation is that you can do thousands of repetitions without wearing out your hitting shoulder.

Hey guys I have been super busy at work so far this week and have not had a lot of time to film myself. My shoulder needed a break from hitting serves everyday last week anyway but I will have more footage up tomorrow.

I've already mentioned that BT needs to end up inside the court, from 18" for baseliners to 3' or more for S/V players. Hopefully, he read it already.
As for toss and legs. The two are not linked. You can toss waaaay too far back, AT your own baseline, and still rise up a foot to hit the ball.
OR, you can drive forwards 18" inside the court, almost, but not quite, dragging your toes 1" off the ground.
Either way, it appears BT is playing in the 5-6 level of tennis, and needs to employ more leg thrust into every single one of his serves.
I have never seen BT hit groundies or volleys.

I did not know that serving would lead to the rest of my game being critiqued but hey it's all good here. I did video an hour practice section with a buddy who plays around the same level as me. Our rating is also the one that LeeD stated. Anyway I am now having some issues with my PC due to Search me Now overtaking Google Chrome. Lee my email is btaylorjohnson @gmail.com
Send me an email and I will reply with that and new serve footage.

GREAT input Captain Obvious. I guess you started chiming in after perfecting your forehand slice

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Not sure what offended you. I agree and thought it was pretty obvious too, but we
are 3 pages in now and you still had not changed, so I thought maybe it had been
forgotten. I didn't mention it as though I was the first to see it or anything.
The post I saw looked like you were more focused on leg use, and I just didn't
see how you can get that where it needs to be with that toss.
I'll leave you to it since you clearly have an eye for the obvious.
good luck with that.
but what is that about a Fh slice??

and Lee?? are you kidding? 5.5 and 120mph serve?? Whats that about?
He probably plays around A5 in alta and wins half his matches with a
good partner.

Sorry, I also don't do e-mail.
I recognized your play after just your first serve you posted. Kinda obvious to me, after playing tennis for 30 years. Like TonLars on here, imagine your play with a MichaelStich serve! TonLars is also knocking at the door trying to get into Q's and Futures to make a round and pay off some bills.

Not sure what offended you. I agree and thought it was pretty obvious too, but we
are 3 pages in now and you still had not changed, so I thought maybe it had been
forgotten. I didn't mention it as though I was the first to see it or anything.
The post I saw looked like you were more focused on leg use, and I just didn't
see how you can get that where it needs to be with that toss.
I'll leave you to it since you clearly have an eye for the obvious.
good luck with that.
but what is that about a Fh slice??

and Lee?? are you kidding? 5.5 and 120mph serve?? Whats that about?
He probably plays around A5 in alta and wins half his matches with a
good partner.

Sorry, I also don't do e-mail.
I recognized your play after just your first serve you posted. Kinda obvious to me, after playing tennis for 30 years. Like TonLars on here, imagine your play with a MichaelStich serve! TonLars is also knocking at the door trying to get into Q's and Futures to make a round and pay off some bills.

I still see a 5-5.5 level player who leaves out 12-20 mph off his serves because he doesn't use his legs. Legs give you higher strikepoint, more angles, bigger court, easier to get the first serves IN, and uses more of the thigh and calf muscles to add ball speed and swingspeed.
Just the 9" higher strike point is worth jumping up into the ball for.

I still see a 5-5.5 level player who leaves out 12-20 mph off his serves because he doesn't use his legs. Legs give you higher strikepoint, more angles, bigger court, easier to get the first serves IN, and uses more of the thigh and calf muscles to add ball speed and swingspeed.
Just the 9" higher strike point is worth jumping up into the ball for.

No idea what tri-cycle is, but the rest of your game must be way better than
that serve
Interesting you think you know how you would do against me, with no idea
of my level, haha. I played 3 for a AA2 Men's city champ team a few years back and
am better now. My daughter and my AA2 mixed just took the city this summer as well.
What is your level in Alta?

No idea what tri-cycle is, but the rest of your game must be way better than
that serve
Interesting you think you know how you would do against me, with no idea
of my level, haha. I played 3 for a AA2 Men's city champ team a few years back and
am better now. My daughter and my AA2 mixed just took the city this summer as well.
What is your level in Alta?

No idea what tri-cycle is, but the rest of your game must be way better than
that serve
Interesting you think you know how you would do against me, with no idea
of my level, haha. I played 3 for a AA2 Men's city champ team a few years back and
am better now. My daughter and my AA2 mixed just took the city this summer as well.
What is your level in Alta?

interesting thread.
Im in a similar situation .
I have a good upper body swing but poor footwork and not using my momentum very well for the serve.
Besides working on the toss, I been thinking about how to use the lower body to get that momentum into the court.
Most modern pros now have there front foot hop and land into the court.

Not sure what offended you. I agree and thought it was pretty obvious too, but we
are 3 pages in now and you still had not changed, so I thought maybe it had been
forgotten. I didn't mention it as though I was the first to see it or anything.
The post I saw looked like you were more focused on leg use, and I just didn't
see how you can get that where it needs to be with that toss.
I'll leave you to it since you clearly have an eye for the obvious.
good luck with that.
but what is that about a Fh slice??

and Lee?? are you kidding? 5.5 and 120mph serve?? Whats that about?
He probably plays around A5 in alta and wins half his matches with a
good partner.

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I have no idea what level dude is but if he is ALTA A-5 then a double bagel is in order. What's your home court Bruce Lee?

Yeah, some of BT's vids of hitting suggest just 5.0 for sure, but it's miles above the other posters on here right now. A mile is more than a full level, in my book. The hitting is fine, the stuff in between just bugs me, how slow they move, how much they need the opponent to hit it in and back to them, that stuff. They haven't shown movement, adaptability, balance, at all.
OTOH, they are better than most vids here. At least it's not contrived for the camera frenetic contrived footwork.
I suspect 5263 can play at lower 5's, so it might not be the triple bagel.

oh yea its coming together. i see some guy trying to get out of this though

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I've known instigators before, and had to whip a couple of guys in HS due to someone
like you stirring the pot, lol.

Hey, but you are just instigating a tennis match and thats cool, and how could it
be bad. I love to play and I guess he does, so as long as he can be laid back
about it and willing to make a new tennis friend...it's all good. Communication
on here is tough and he seems sort of snarley, but We may get along great
in person. I never meant speaking of his level as an insult. I just
thought Lee was dreaming listing this guy as a 5.0+ and I am more convinced of mid
to low 4.5 after this vid....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpUdLn_edp0&feature=youtu.be&noredirect=1

..I guessed he was A5, which is low to mid 4.5 on avg., but
don't know why he thought I was at that level??
I WAS at that level about 15 yrs ago and took a city championship
plate there before getting bumped to A3 and as city finalists,
getting bumped to A1 for another City Championship season etc...

I'd love to play bt and see what he's got. If he's way better than I see in the
vid, then I'd be glad to share that with you guys. It would show me that vid effect
is even tougher to acct for than I thought, even though I've watched quite
a bit of vid thru the yrs working with jrs.
Donald Young tennis center is good if you want to come south or I can come up
there. I know we would both love to bagel the other, but keeping it friendly
is the only way to do something like this , right?

Please read LeeD's post 83.
That was the first HITTING I"d seen of BT.
Watching thousands of players in my 30 years, I"ve never seen anyone with the poise and form of BT's serve without them being at least a 5-5.5. I've seen plenty of guys with WORSE motions playing 5-5.5.
And I"ve never even seen 5263 hit or play. But based on his knowledge of the game, at least he knows the strategy he likes to teach and play, so he's no duffer either.
And some newbie here posted that I don't play tennis, I just read books about tennis. That is the stupidest thing ever said about me. I hate reading for comprehension, I went from 4.0 to 1.8 by the time I was a senior in high school, and couldn't even finish 3 semesters of junior college. Why? Not because I'm a dummy, but because I refused to take home a book ever, from 7th grade to 3rd semester college. I don't learn by books, I learn from doing the sport.

I've known instigators before, and had to whip a couple of guys in HS due to someone
like you stirring the pot, lol.

Hey, but you are just instigating a tennis match and thats cool, and how could it
be bad. I love to play and I guess he does, so as long as he can be laid back
about it and willing to make a new tennis friend...it's all good. Communication
on here is tough and he seems sort of snarley, but We may get along great
in person. I never meant speaking of his level as an insult. I just
thought Lee was dreaming listing this guy as a 5.0+ and I am more convinced of mid
to low 4.5 after this vid....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpUdLn_edp0&feature=youtu.be&noredirect=1

..I guessed he was A5, which is low to mid 4.5 on avg., but
don't know why he thought I was at that level??
I WAS at that level about 15 yrs ago and took a city championship
plate there before getting bumped to A3 and as city finalists,
getting bumped to A1 for another City Championship season etc...

I'd love to play bt and see what he's got. If he's way better than I see in the
vid, then I'd be glad to share that with you guys. It would show me that vid effect
is even tougher to acct for than I thought, even though I've watched quite
a bit of vid thru the yrs working with jrs.
Donald Young tennis center is good if you want to come south or I can come up
there. I know we would both love to bagel the other, but keeping it friendly
is the only way to do something like this , right?

But we haven't seen 5263 hitting, either. He could be injured, limping, maybe on his deathbed.
As for BT, he doesn't look all that different than the Canadian player trying to hit with Nalbandian. He's hitting better, but against WHOM?
Most of us would freeze hitting with Nalby.

But we haven't seen 5263 hitting, either. He could be injured, limping, maybe on his deathbed.
As for BT, he doesn't look all that different than the Canadian player trying to hit with Nalbandian. He's hitting better, but against WHOM?
Most of us would freeze hitting with Nalby.

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Lee, I assure I would not overly impress in a vid, but my playing record (usually
at #1 dubs with a partner that I train) is loaded with undefeated seasons.
I don't consider myself a singles player due mainly to age and not being at a
good singles playing weight, but even so have a heck of a singles record against
very good jrs and college players (about the only singles I play) anyway.

Well, most players labelled.."he's no duffer either".....
That's pretty much condemnation of at least 4.5-5.0 levels, isn't it. It is in my book.
Our problem is our age, for singles anyways. At 27, I was pretty much considered a lower level Open player, or a true rising B.
Now at 63, I can realistically rate myself atop 3.5 only, since I can't run, and play once a week.
I'd imagine you can run, and also play more than once a week.

5263, if I were you, I would hit deep down the middle balls because anyone who's read your posts will be looking for heavy short balls landing in the smart targets area, and this will shock and confuse the heck out of them! How's that for strategy playing against TT readers? (Just joking, of course!)

Lee, I assure I would not overly impress in a vid, but my playing record (usually
at #1 dubs with a partner that I train) is loaded with undefeated seasons.
I don't consider myself a singles player due mainly to age and not being at a
good singles playing weight, but even so have a heck of a singles record against
very good jrs and college players (about the only singles I play) anyway.

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you have advantage now. dont post vid to give him idea of your playing level

you have advantage now. dont post vid to give him idea of your playing level

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Hey, I know you are enjoying this, but I feel sort of bad about it. I made a post
about his toss and he got smart about it and then a comment to Lee about his
level, because I thought Lee was way off, but not intended to offend. I really
expected he was a *mid to high* A alta player. Timbo has it right and there is a
big video effect and I could be way off, but I was very surprised he says he is
AA1....which is the highest level of Atlanta ALTA tennis.

AA1 is usually reserved not only for college players, but the better college and
former challenger level players imo. Most avg college level players play AA2 or AA3,
with many playing well down the levels.
What those of you not familiar with alta might not know is your can play well
below your level in Alta. It is based more on the overall team level vs your
individual level. An AA3 player can drop down and play on a A5 team in his
neighborhood and it will affect the teams level, but not always so much. You
could be playing at B1 and face a pair of former college players in the #1 spot...and
it happens quite frequently. That is the strange thing about alta is that he could
be a legit AA1 player as he says and still take a whipping from a A5 player...straight up,
and I'm surprised he doesn't know that??
Right or wrong...that is ALTA and it is very popular, pushing 100,000 in membership.

I dont like to be negative, but Im going to have to say that this is certainly not a 5.0 or above player from the baseline. Just my observation based on my experience. Feel free to disagree or post results.

I dont like to be negative, but Im going to have to say that this is certainly not a 5.0 or above player from the baseline. Just my observation based on my experience. Feel free to disagree or post results.

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You know, I have to agree. It seems like too many routine balls are missed and there are some that I saw that were just dumped into the bottom of the net, or even hit the court before hitting the net. That said, there were some good rips.

I hit with a 5.0 last night - ex college player. the rallies lasted 20-40 balls. Rallying with a 5.0 should be very easy and the only challenge is not to get worn out from hitting so many balls in a row.

I cited the guy hitting with Nalbandian.
Can any of us even suspect he's a 5.5? Well, Nalby maybe, but that practice partner barely looked better than high school.
Guess what? He's an open player hitting really poorly!
What I saw in BT's vid I already stated. Looked bad. However, I've also just hit with #2 for Harvard, when he was still there, and he can have off moments too.
Kinda takes 2 to tango. If one player is waaay off and not really ready to try, it affects the other guy. I know this have never happenned to YOU.